


Pink Lips and Road Trips

by kaydtebeau



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dead Marco Bott, Existential Angst, Feel-good, M/M, Post-Graduation, Road Trips, School, Travel, alcohol talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2476733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydtebeau/pseuds/kaydtebeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Kirschtein doesn't know what the fuck he's going to do now that he's out of school.</p><p>Armin Arlert doesn't know what the fuck he's going to do now that he's out of school.</p><p>Their mutual cluelessness sends them on an impulse trip around the country.</p><p>Their mutual cluelessness sends them to find their own little corner of the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink Lips and Road Trips

Tears. Lots of them. Too many of them. They streamed from his eyes and down his temples, some onto his ears. His breath was shaky and erratic. He couldn't compose himself, and everyone had begun to notice. They furrowed their brows in worry, some asking whats wrong. He couldn't reply. He could only stare at the blurred ceiling as he lay on the coffee table.

His hands shook as he feebly handed the red cup to Krista. Her eyes were filled with genuine concern as assisted the poor tipsy young man into the bedroom. His eyes were watery, his face was wet, his body was trembling, and his stomach was churning.

He was carefully allowed to lay on the bed on his side, head in her lap. She placed a blanket over him, and finally spoke.

"Why were you on the coffee table crying?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know what?" 

"What I'm doing, where I'm going, where I should go, how I should go there, who I am," the young man replied solemnly and emptily.

Krista sighed and brushed the hair out of his eyes, hoping he would sleep. "Growing up is scary, but we all have to do it. We'll be fine."

"We spend so much time planning for the future...but then the future stops being the future, you know?" He said, feeling his heart sink into his chest and his throat constrict. He felt cold in his finger tips and stinging in his eyes as he swallowed back tears. He hoped she was right.

Krista moved his head from her lap onto a pillow, sitting beside him like a mother speaking to her child before bed. Her blonde hair cascaded gently down her back, her eyes were glassy but kind, and her lips curled into the small, rosy smile that all the boys at school had grown so fond of. 

Krista was about to reply when a drunken friend of theirs ran down the hall yelling, "I'm Captain Street Justice! Obey me!" She opened her mouth to speak again when they were interrupted by the same guy knocking furiously on the door saying, "Hey, you guys should kiss!"

"You're smart boy, Jean, you'll figure it out soon."

"And if I don't?" 

"You will," she said, stroking a gentle hand over his face, "Everyone will. Now get some sleep, you need it."

"Thanks for being here, Krista, you're a goddess."

"As I've been told," she laughed.

Krista stood and went over to the door. "Goodnight, Jean."

"Night."

There, in the melancholy darkness of Reiner's bedroom, a recently graduated Jean Kirschtein lay anxious, lonely, and a but drunk. 

The cold of the night nipped at his skin viciously, causing him to huddle into the blanket Krista had covered him with. He had alcohol in his blood, heaviness in his chest, fear in his gut, and tears in his eyes. He looked and felt totally and utterly pathetic, and the whispering about him from the party outside only made it worse. The second time anyone has ever seen Jean Kirschtein cry ever, was after one of life's biggest milestones. Pathetic.

Life seemed to stop after high school when it came to Jean's planning for the future. His entire life had led up to graduation. He hadn't thought much about the rest. 

He hadn't considered tuitions, or scholarship opportunities, or jobs, or colleges. He decided he would be lawyer with a wife and kids. But after taking one quarter of government in high school, he realized that world wasn't for him. After a bit of experimenting with the opposite sex, he'd realized neither were girls. After babysitting Marco's little sister for so long, neither were kids. His entire plan had come crashing down senior year.

On that coffee table, the tipsy Jean Kirschtein realized that life didn't end after high school. It begins.

The thought hit him harder than any linebacker. It hit him like a tsunami that ran down his throat, into his stomach, went through his veins, into his heart, and to his brain. The water filled him to the brim and leaked through tired eyes in front of the entire class of 2014.

 

...

"Jean, Jean, wake up," a blond with booze breath and sex hair said as shook him gently awake.

A tired groan was emitted from the exhausted and slightly hungover dishwater blond as he wiped drool off his cheek. 

Red eyes, hair sticking up at odd intervals, breath that good be a biological hazard were three of the many perks of waking up beside Jean Kirschtein. Jean's body ached with lack of motivation and defeat as he responded, his eyes half lidded.

"What the fuck do ya' want?" He whined, lifting his head off the pillow to speak then letting it slam back down into the plushness.

Reiner stretched. "We're kickin' everyone out. You either stay to clean or you don't stay at all."

"Is there a 'stay in bed and sleep for twelve years' option? Because I pick that one." 

"You got five minutes or we're putting you on puke duty."

Jean was out of there in two. He walked groggily down the street, and began to walk to his house two blocks away. He stopped the corner of his street, staring at the blue house that he'd been invited to for years upon years. 

He remembered swinging on the tire swing out front. He remembered when they outgrew it so they made another. He remembered their tree house out back. He remembered listening to records together. He remembered eating dinner with his family. He remembered when things got weird. He remembered when he sat there in silence, tension filling the air where he should have been walking.

He remembered sitting in the gym where he should have been having second period P.E., everyone in shock. He remembered too much. 

He kept walking down to the other end of the street, third house from the opposite corner. He opened the door, and walked straight to his room, head pounding.

As he covered his head with a pillow and groaned, he realized:

This is going to be the worst summer of his life.


End file.
